On election day in 2010 the Sun's front page was a mock-up of the iconic Obama poster with a picture of Cameron and the slogan: "Our only hope".

The notion that Obama's campaign tactics would be copied should come as no surprise. It was a brilliant campaign, and was copied everywhere. In Ghana, John Atta Mills produced posters of himself standing next to a life-size cut-out of Obama. In Brazil, at least eight black candidates took advantage of a quirk in electoral laws so they could stand as "Barack Obama" in elections.

Even the French were giddy. "America is a New World again," said Rama Yade, France's junior minister for human rights, and France's only non-white government member at the time. "On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes."

What's strange is that it would be used by these people in this way. The phrase "Yes we can" gained currency just a couple years before during the Latino-led demonstrations for immigrant rights in 2006 in Spanish: "Si se puede" – hardly a cause championed for the anti-immigrant Murdoch press.

As an election slogan, its genius lay in its mixture of vacuity and acuity, depending on what you needed. It said little but implied a great deal – yes we can elect a black president, yes we can turn our country around, yes we can defeat the Republicans. It molded itself to fit your aspirations: simultaneously it could mean almost anything to anybody and nothing at all.

But for all its flexibility, its resonance lay in the notion that something improbable was afoot. That hardly fits the bill for a Cameron victory. With the help of corporate media, the Conservatives can put an Eton-educated prime minister into Number 10 to slash the living standards of the poor. Yes. We. Cam.